18 There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

Introduction 

Fear –   Normal i.e., can serve as an alarm system to warn us of danger

            Fear of darkness led to discovery of electricity.

            Fear of pain led to discovery of anaesthetics

            Fear of ignorance led to building of great institutions of learning.

‘Normal’ Fear has some good in that it has helped us to grow, invent and create. In this sense fear is normal and necessary.

But fear can also be destructive and abnormal. Sigmund Freud spoke of a person who was quite properly afraid of snakes in the heart of an African jungle, but he also spoke of another person who feared that snakes were under the carpet in his city apartment. Psychologists say that normal children are born with only two fears- the fear of falling and the fear of loud noises- and that all other fears are environmentally acquired. Most of these acquired fears are snakes under the carpet, imaginary and therefore, not real.

It is such fears that we usually refer to when we speak of getting rid of fear. For normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyzes us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our lives; abnormal fear constantly distorts our inner lives.

The challenge then is to become victors over the fear that paralyses, not victims. How do we master fear?

Through Courage, Love and Faith.

Courage

1. The power of the mind to overcome fear. (I can do all things…)
2. The inner resolution to go forward in spite of obstacles and frightening situations

Not cowardice- a giving in to circumstances

Courage faces fear and thereby masters it; cowardice represses fear and so is mastered by it

Love

1. Fear is mastered through love. ‘There is no fear in love…’
2. This is the kind of love which led Christ to the cross, that kept Paul from becoming bitter against those who persecuted him
3. This love is not soft and anaemic. This love confronts evil without shying away. Love breaks us and reveals to us our weaknesses and so helps us understand ourselves.

What happens in our country is that hatred, which is rooted in fear, has resulted in the mayhem and murder so prevalent today. Recent violence against the little children.

Faith

Fear is mastered through faith in God.